Sitka (July 25-27)

Let me first start by saying “Andrew Paxton” does not live here and the Proposal wasn’t even filmed here - it was filmed in Massachusetts. If you know Mike then you know he loves RomComs. He was sad, but he was fine in the end because Sitka did not disappoint!

Friday July 25th – Planes and Sitka

Today we loaded up on the Alaskan Airlines flight to Sitka.  The plane was packed as its final destination was Seattle.  The Haines runway is so short that I seriously thought we were landing in the water.  They stopped literally 20’ from the end.  There is no taxi area so turned around on the runway and went to the terminal.  We took a shuttle to the Sitka Hotel and explored Sitka. We spent the day exploring.  Sitka has great historical significance as this is where the Russians made their capital when they owned Alaska.  The Czar thought this would be Russia’s strong hold in North America, but they killed all the Sea Otters and took all the furs and wanted to get rid of it.  They sold it to the US for 2 cents an acre in 1867, which equates to 2.7 million dollars.  That was a steal, but it was called Sewards Folly because everyone though Secretary of State John Seward was crazy.  Sitka was the place where the signing over happened and the Russian Flag was lowered and the US Flag was raised.,  It also was the territory capital before the building burned and was moved to Juneau.  There is a lot of Tlingit history here and lots of fights with the Russians.  There is also a large Russian Orthodox Cathedral here (St. Michaels).  It was also the town where the Bishop of the Russian Orthodox and the Presbyterian churches of Alaska are.  Even though the first fort was in Haines – which we find weird.  Sitka is very interesting as there is a National Historical Park that houses a lot of Tlinglet artifacts and a Totem Forest (more on that in Sunday’s post).

The image on the left is the Tlinglet House, the Tlinglet Totem, the view from our hotel. The middle picture is the Pioneer House - it was built for all the aging Stampeders that never went home and is now an assisted living building. The little house is the grave of the first bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia (Alaska).

Left to Right - Russian Orthodox Catherderal (first one in America (was Russia at the time)). The Bishops house, inside the Holy Holy (only ministers can go). The top right is the Presbyterian Catherderal and the Sitka Harbor.

We had a large walk about and finally found a river full of Salmon.  The Indian River was full of thousands of Chum (Dog Salmon).  No one eats those as they are really greasy and task yucky, but the dogs love them. We also found the Mountain View Brewery and had a fantastic pizza at Mean Queen.

Mike got this great video that shows how many salmon there was!

Saturday July 26th – Captain Gary’s Wildlife Adventure & more exploring

Today we boarded the Mornging Glory boat, a custom-built boat by Captain Gary and took a wonderful wildlife journey.  We headed out into the Sitka sound and found three or four humpback whales.  One was called Nightrider, a big male.  There was a momma and her baby and maybe one more.  We could hear them blowing out of their blow holes as well as lots of tails.

Two awesome tails on the left. Upper right is Momma and Baby blowing and bottom right is them surfacing. Baby Whales cannot raise their tails as they don’t have enough muscles and they stay with momma for a year.

We then headed back to shore and saw a raft of Sea Otters. A raft is when a large group of sea otters all float around together. Then we saw some Harbor Seals on the rocks and a group of sea lions on a buoy

We saw one little guy getting up on a buoy.  It took him 6 tries, but he finally made it.  I posted a series of the first fry. Now imagine him doing it six times - we were all cheering for him. The other picture is of him being all proud that he made it.

I made it!

We ended our journey at the fish hatchery.  This is very interesting.  They have a big net around the hatchery that the salmon can’t get to the hatchery so they all stack up.  Then the hatchery has a commercial fisher come in and net all the fish.  They take the ones they want to use for breeding and then sell the others to be processed.  They take that money to keep the hatchery running.  Each lady salmon has 100,000 eggs.  So when we see all these salmon (literally thousands) there are a lot of babies getting made, but many don’t survive.  It was very interesting.  Sorry no pics, but I got some amazing pictures of an Eagle hanging out at the hatchery.

After our tour we headed out to the Sitka Farmers Market and took another walk to the river and looked at more fish and eagles.  We had a nice dinner at the Bayview and called it a day.

We were also treated to viewing an active spawn - enjoy the video!

Sunday, July 27th – Church and Captain Gary’s Land Tour

We had a lazy morning and went to St. Michaels Cathedral in Sitka for church.  It was a beautiful church and its windows faced the bay.  It was good to go and thank God for all that he has given us and the beautiful days we have had.  After church we wandered around town, had lunch and headed out on our land tour.

Our first stop was the Alaska Raptor Center.  Alaska has over 100,000 bald eagles and 33,000 of them live in the Sitka area.  This center rescues all raptors, but mostly eagles that have been hurt or orphaned.  They have an area that is probably 3 stories high and the length of ½ a football field where the raptors that are going to get rehabilitated and released live.  They stay there until they are able to go back into the wild.  The animals that can no longer fly are given a wonderful sanctuary were they live in the elements outside.  It was great to get so close to these birds.

We then loaded up and hit The Fortress of the Bears.  This is a facility that houses Coastal Brown Bears and Black Bears that were abandoned at birth.  It is right next to the old Pulp Mill that is now a fish processing facility.  They took these huge tanks probably 300 – 400 foot diameter and made a swimming area and an island for the bears.  There are three of these enclosures.  All of these bears were orphaned at birth (usually by their mommas getting killed).  They would not survive in the wild, but have a nice life in the Fortress.  Again, it was cool they didn’t die and allowed us to get super close up to the bears.

These are some of my favorite poses. Cooling off and Stretching out. The bear that is standing is showing the trainer his foot so she can inspect his paw. There is no interaction with trainers except from this distance.

Our final stop was the Sitka National Historical Park.  This has a wonderful history.  Sitka was the first capital of Alaska.  Govenor Brady (Govenor of Alaska Territory) knew that tourism would play a major economic role in the development of Alaska.  He went all over Alaska and collected Totem Poles and Native artifacts.  In 1904 he took his collection to the Worlds Fair in Saint Louis.  In 1905 he took them to the Centennial Celebration of Lewis and Clark in Oregon.  After that he brought them back to Sitka and make a park for them to celebrate the indigenous people of Alaska.  The totem poles each tell a specific story of either the nation or the clan or special events.  There are too many to post, but here are our favorites.

We had to take one more walk to the river to see the salmon. There weren’t nearly as many as their were yesterday, but the ones that were left where quite feisty and jumping a lot.

We ended the night with a wonderful meal and view at the Galley. Good Bye Sitka - it was great :)